Local Democrats keep party chairman

Saturday

Oct 21, 2017 at 2:38 PMOct 21, 2017 at 6:49 PM

By James Bennett jbennett@c-dh.net

Charges of domestic assault were dropped against Maury County’s Democratic Party chairman last week despite a police report that described his girlfriend as having a laceration above her right eyebrow after a confrontation with him.

Seth James Campbell, 28, was arrested Oct. 5, the morning after the alleged incident, a Columbia Police report said. After stepping aside briefly as chairman, Campbell was reinstated by the Democratic Party’s steering committee and will continue in his role.

“Everything totally was resolved; the DA dropped all charges,” Campbell told The Daily Herald on Saturday. “The party held an emergency executive committee meeting on Oct. 10 and voted to stay the course, pending a full investigation. With the charges being dropped, they have asked me to continue as chair of the party.”

Campbell challenged state Rep. Sheila Butt, R-Columbia, for her seat in the 2016 election as an independent. The Mt. Pleasant High School special education teacher and assistant football coach was named party chairman in March.

“I wanted the party to decide,” said Campbell, who was represented in the matter by Columbia attorney Cara Lynn Cobb. “I certainly was not married to the idea of continuing to chair the party if they did not want me there. I wanted to throw the ball in the party’s court. They said they wanted to give me a couple of weeks to get things together, and we did that. We’ve been active ever since.”

Longtime party activist Pame Moore-Morrow confirmed Campbell was asked to stay. It’s unclear if members of the party read the police report, which described an officer’s meeting with Campbell’s girlfriend the night of the alleged assault.

“While making initial contact, an injury to the right side of her face could be observed, with a laceration above the right eyebrow still bleeding with drying blood also on the side of her face,” the police report said. “The area around the eye was swollen as well.”

The girlfriend told police Campbell and she had gone to dinner at a Columbia restaurant, returned to his home and got into an argument. She said she wanted to leave.

“She advised that Seth did not want her to leave, became angry and began throwing items from inside her vehicle at her,” the report said. “One of the items hit her above her right eye, causing about a 2-inch laceration. She advised she did not believe that Seth meant to hit her with the items that he was throwing.”

An EMS worker checked and cleaned the woman’s wound, the police report said. She declined a domestic violence packet and said she did not want an order of protection.

“[The woman] did not want contact made with Seth and stated she did not want to prosecute him and didn’t mean to cause trouble,” the police report said.

The woman emailed The Daily Herald on Oct. 6, asking the newspaper not to run his name in the newspaper.

“Seth was arrested yesterday after a fight that he and I had outside of his house,” she wrote in her email. “I am not now nor did I ever want to press charges against him or have him arrested. Seth has never once laid a hand on me.

“Please do not release his name in the paper,” she added. “We both are hopeful that we can get the charges dropped. I am worried sick about what could potentially happen should this get out in the community. The officers may have had the best of intentions, but Seth should never have been arrested. Please give us some time to get a handle on this.”

The newspaper ran a story about the charge in its Sunday, Oct. 8 edition and a follow-up story Oct. 9 on a Facebook post from Campbell to party members, stepping away from his position “at this time.” The party sent a statement later, saying Campbell had resigned.

“I told them it was a misunderstanding,” Campbell said in summarizing his remarks to first vice chairman Mark Ormon, who passed along his comments to the Democratic committee. “I told them my lawyer and I were confident in getting the charges dropped. I would be happy to lead the party if it felt it was the best move. I was 100 percent all right if they wanted to make a change. I did not want to cause the party any embarrassment.”

Campbell said Saturday the arrest “was flimsy at best,” based on a misunderstanding.

“Things escalated and resulted in a warrant for my arrest,” Campbell said. “We were just ready to move on after getting it taken care of.”

I asked Campbell what he and his girlfriend were arguing about.

“Personal matters,” he said.

Campbell was at the United Auto Workers Fall Festival on Oct. 14 and at the Mid-South Barbecue Festival in Mt. Pleasant on Saturday. He said he will be preside over the next party meeting Nov. 7 at Puckett’s, with gubernatorial candidate and former Nashville Mayor Karl Dean scheduled to address the group.

“I like leading the party and getting out in the community is very rewarding. I love it,” Campbell said.

Monthly Democratic Party meetings have been well attended since Campbell became chairman, with a near-capacity crowd at the UAW Hall in June for the party’s Heritage Dinner.

“We used to get a crowd of five for our meetings,” Moore-Morrow noted. “Now we get more than 50.”

In retrospect, Campbell said he just should have walked away during the argument.

“When things like that happen, when things escalate, you should just let cooler heads prevail,” Campbell said. “Of course I wish it had not happened. But it happened. Then you have to deal with it. We took care of business, and the legal system ran its course. There’s a reason there were no charges. It was a misunderstanding.”

Campbell was critical of Butt during the campaign and occasionally dinged her for a 2016 incident involving her husband, who was not charged by a grand jury in a case involving a missing trailer.

I assume he now understands the importance of not jumping to conclusions.

“People have the right to criticize me,” Campbell said. “There are plenty of critiques out there about me. I was more concerned about college, and finishing college, than I was about Sheila and her legal entanglements.

“I tell folks all of the time in the party that we shouldn’t focus on mishaps from other candidates,” he added. “That’s not the right thing. Sheila has a track record a mile long of failures in the legislature, and we should focus on that.”

I asked District Attorney Brent Cooper on Saturday if he were able to confirm the charge was dropped. “Can’t confirm but it may be accurate,” he texted.

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James Bennett is editor of The Daily Herald. His column blends exclusive reporting, old-school journalistic storytelling and original commentary on whatever catches his fancy or yours. He was a 2017 Tennessee Press Association first-place award winner for editorial writing and public service. Contact him at jbennett@c-dh.net.

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